Tag Archives: fight or flight

Aaaand another post from me. So I just got through with the rehearsal & presentation of a new musical — my job at NYU is to be the faculty advisor to teams of graduate students who are writing musicals as their masters thesis. We hire professional actors, directors and music directors to put on a staged reading of the show (a concert version, basically – if you haven’t seen a staged reading. It’s actors at music stands.) Anyway — they do it all in four days. They get the material on Thursday, rehearse 8 hours on Thursday and 8 hours on Friday, weekend off, 8 hours more on Monday, a few hours more on Tuesday, and then present it Tuesday afternoon (on book — but the whole score learned, etc.) It’s very intense, as you can imagine. Whole songs get cut, scenes get rewritten. But even those pro actors need to be gently reminded to pick up their cues. I’m sure Greg & Suzanne have talked about the ways to think about that — I’ll throw my typical advice onto the pile. One is — it’s not about “faster”, it’s about increasing the need/passion/urgency. Another is — don’t wait till the end of the other actor’s line to breathe. Breathe during their line so that yours can come right in. And last — think about any conversation like a game of ping-pong — you’re sending your energy out with your line, and the next person smacks that energy along with their line. There’s force and intention behind every line — that’s what keeps a scene moving.

I just thought you’d like to know that even Broadway actors go through the process you’re going through — and at some point have to go from exploratory-tempo to knowing to erase the gaps between lines so that the scenes have drive and momentum…

In “None of the Above, ” the human students reject their Hannah-selected career choices.

I (Rob) recently had a production of one of my other shows, Vanishing Point, at Wright State University, in Dayton, Ohio. The students there were kind enough to sing “Higher”, our opening number, for me, which I recorded as sort of a quick-and-dirty demo. Usually Katie and I sing our …